It's been a summer sadly without any long rides. A combination of happy events (sorting the new house out, visits of family and friends) and less happy ones (slipping a disc, ouch) has meant I've done lots of day rides, but didn't get any serious tours in. 

More trivially, we managed to break both our cameras in an identical way, and haven't bothered to get them fixed. I have been doing a bunch of day rides around Cornwall, and many (no, all!) have been very beautiful, but I expected what already limited appeal of trundles around southern England might be lost if they ended up being just lists of directions and descriptions like and then I rode through a field - it was muddy so decided to spare everyone that.

Finally we got 2 weeks off at the end of September. We were planning a trip to the Isles of Scilly as well as travelling around to se family. At the end, I figured I'd have a couple of days to do some cycling. Since we'd need to camp on the non-riding visit to the island (why? price of hotel, £260; price of campsite, £11) I could also see if sleeping in a tent since I messed up my back was feasible. With enough codeine and real ale anything is possible!*

The plan was to leave my bike at my mother's house in Totnes, South Devon - this is the area I grew up in and I know well, for I am not a real Cornishman but in fact a perfidious Devonian, with cream first and inferior pasties and everything. From here I'd ride pretty much due west, down the long peninsular of the westcountry to almost the end of Cornwall, where I now live. Hence home from home.

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Originally I plotted a pretty much straight route which happens to go almost due west (red). This was still a two day job since 160km days (with 2000m of climbing) would probably be a bit of a shock to the old system. Then I started to get a bit more ambitious. Why not ride over Dartmoor - I'd explored the moor a lot as a kid but I'd never cycled over it (why ever not? Turns out there was a reason). Then if I was going over Dartmoor, just continue to Bodmin moor, home of the famous beast to wild camp (blue).

As the day grew nearer and the weather worse, I realised this might be a tad ambitious. But I did come up with a compromise route. Frankly it's a bit silly on the map - I'd head north a fair bit, cross Dartmoor, come back south to cross the Tamar into Cornwall in Plymouth and split the journey somewhere like Polperro on the south coast (pinkish). Since this was still somewhat bestial, I referred to this as the semi-beast route.

So that was the plan and here are some notes on the ride. Still no photos - the camera's still buggered I'm afraid. I'll try to keep it descriptive, brief and amusing.

* actually don't mix these, unless you want to become almost unbearably groovy.